Swimming pools offer personal recreation and relaxation in a variety of settings, for example in private homes, apartment complexes, motels, resorts and country clubs. Various flotation devices including buoyant chairs, rafts, water wings, floating cushions, body floats and air mattresses are used by swimmers as an aid for floating and relaxing on the surface of the water, while remaining seated upright, reclining or lounging, either partially or completely submerged. These items of pool furniture include flotation cushions made of a buoyant material such as open cell foam, closed cell foam, cork, kapok, fiberglass or balsa wood, which are sealed within a protective outer covering.
A popular item of pool furniture is the buoyant lounge chair that permits a swimmer to relax on the surface of the water in a seated, semi-reclining orientation. In some lounge chair designs, the angle of recline is fixed and determined by the form of the rigid frame on which buoyancy cushions are attached, for example as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,086,150, which is incorporated herein by reference. In other lounge chair designs, the chair back is pivotably coupled to the frame on which buoyancy cushions are attached, for example as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,312,054, which is incorporated herein by reference. Those buoyant lounge chairs, manufactured and sold by Texas Recreation Corporation of Wichita Falls, Texas have met with considerable commercial success. The present invention was stimulated by the need for a buoyant lounge chair having pivotal chair back that can be set in an upright, semi-reclining sitting position, in which the pool chair functions essentially as a buoyant chair, to a fully folded, minimum profile configuration for storage purposes, and to facilitate handling and shipment. For convenience and comfort, the back rest should be easily set in the standard angle of recline provided by conventional fixed-back lounge chairs.
According to another conventional buoyant lounge chair arrangement, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,852, the back rest frame is pivotally connected to the seat frame and is inclined against a rear cross bar, and the seat frame is braced by releasable engagement of a slotted bracket with a forward cross bar. The angle of recline is adjusted by extending and retracting the slotted bracket relative to the forward cross bar. This movement translates into angle of recline adjustment as the two sections pivot about a common hinge axis.
An important consideration in the design and construction of buoyant lounge chairs, including those including a foldable back, is the maintenance of a water-tight seal about the cushion material and around the welded metal frame. The interlocking components of the foldable seat back coupling apparatus should also be protected.
The external surface of the lounge chair is susceptible to attack by mildew, fungus, surface hardening, cracking and shrinking that are caused by long-term exposure to water, pool chemicals and solar radiation. Consequently, lounge chairs as well as other buoyant flotation devices are desirably protected by a durable, non-reactive coating of plastic material, such as vinyl. The protective coating must be soft, pliable and able to withstand rough handling and high shear forces along the joinder lines between the chair arms, the chair seat, and along the flex lines between the chair back and chair seat. The protective coating is applied by various processes, including dipping and spraying, preferably as set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 6,086,150, incorporated herein by reference.
Another limitation imposed by the construction of conventional lounge chairs is that the buoyant arm support sections are subject to tearing or deformation, and are also subject to collapse and separation from the chair frame at the interface between the arm support sections and the chair seat.
Special care should be taken in the construction of buoyant lounge chairs to provide sufficient buoyancy material to maintain a stable upright orientation while the occupant is in a semi-reclining or sitting orientation. The buoyant lounge chair can overturn in response to shifting of its center of buoyancy as the occupant turns or moves about.